The demise of the Detroit Red Wings last season was greatly exaggerated.

It was thrilling the manner they rallied to make the playoffs. It was even more so how the Red Wings beat the Anaheim Ducks in the opening round of the playoffs, and pushed the eventual Stanley Cup champion Chicago Blackhawks to a seventh game in the Western Conference semifinals.

Given the number of young players the Red Wings relied on during their playoff push last spring, it should provide an impetus for the 2013-14 season.

Wednesday night, before a sellout crowd of more than 20,000 at Joe Louis Arena to open the season, it appeared like it did.

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The Red Wingsí debut in the Eastern Conference against the rebuilding Buffalo Sabres went as expected. They proved to be the more skilled team in a victory.

The Red Wings have emerged from the transitional year last season as a probable Stanley Cup contender. Itís not, however, for the same reasons as in the past.

The Red Wings are no longer the type of team which is going to outgun other teams. They have to win with a good defensive positioning, goaltending and capitalizing on available scoring chances, which arenít as many.

The Red Wingsí strength now is defensively. Goal scoring could still prove to be painful at times, even with the veteran free agent additions of Stephen Weiss and Daniel Afredsson, both of whom displayed a lot of ďjumpĒ on Wednesday.

Henrik Zetterberg and Pavel Datsyk are superior hockey players. Itís not a stretch to suggest Datsyuk is one of the Top 10 players in the world, Zetterberg in the Top 25. Zetterberg threw in the bonus of stepping into the role as captain, following inthe huge footsteps of Steve Yzerman and Nicklas Lidstrom, flawlessly last season. Thing is, goal scoring isnít the strength for either.

Weiss has a more of goal scoring touch than the player he has essentially replaced, Valtteri Filppula, and, even in his 40s, youíd have to take Alfredsson, who has an excellent shot, over the player he is essentially replacing, Damien Brunner.

I didnít notice much of Johan Franzen Wednesday. Some would say he is streaky. Others would say he floats. I wonít stand in such harsh judgment of him on the effort front, but itís undeniable you canít depend on him to be a big-time goal scorer consistently. It just hasnít happened, other than in spurts.

In their true salad days, the Red Wings had a lot of firepower in Brendan Shanahan, Steve Yzerman and Sergei Fedorov, and often a cast of future Hall of Famers brought in just to score goals (most notably Brett Hull and Luc Robitaille).

The Red Wingsí will always miss Lidstrom, but their high-end raw talent now is on the defensive end of the ice. Brendan Smith and Danny DeKeyser are potential All Star caliber players. Jonathan Ericsson has become shocking solid considering the struggles he faced early in his career. Niklas Krowall is, frankly, underrated.

But the biggest key of all is goalie Jimmy Howard. If he had gone to free agency this past summer instead of signing a contract extension late last season, Howard would have been the most sought after player on the market. He performed very well in the playoffs, and he picked up where he left off Wednesday, despite a blunder handling the puck, which led to Buffaloís only goal.

He made several difficult saves look easy as the Red Wings had to kill off seven penalties in the first two periods, a couple putting them in five-on-three predicaments.

The rest of the game wasnít close. The Red Wings still outshot the Sabres by a wide margin, but didnít get the puck past Buffalo goalie Ryan Miller often.

It was just often enough, as it turned out.

This is the type of game the Red Wings win these days Ė not wild, high-scoring games, but tight and close ones.